pharmaco-, pharmac-, -pharmic
(Greek: medical drug, medicine; poison)
2. Expelling or counteracting poison.
3. An antidote against poison or infection; a counterpoison.
4. A remedy or preservative against poison; an antidote.
Biopharming, in which genes for pharmacologically active agents are inserted and grown in crops such as potatoes, is a rapidly expanding area.
Similar experiments are also taking place with animals. Genetically altered cows and goats can produce milk containing human proteins that can then be separated from the milk and used for therapeutics.
2. The study and use of plants, fungi, animals, microorganisms, and minerals; as well as, their biological and pharmacological applications.
3. A combination of the approaches of medical anthropology, phytotherapy, and pharmaceutical science, this discipline examines medicinal plants in indigenous cultures, their bioactive compounds, and the sustainable development and the production of nature-derived therapeutics.
Ethnopharmacologists are particularly concerned with local people’s rights to further use and develop their autochthonous (place of origin; indigenous, native) resources.
Today’s ethnopharmacological research embraces multidisciplinary efforts in the:
- documentation of indigenous medical knowledge.
- scientific study of indigenous medicines in order to contribute in the long-run to improved health care in the regions of the studies.
- search for pharmacologically unique principles from existing indigenous remedies.
- combinations of such diverse fields as anthropology, pharmacology, pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical biology, natural product chemistry, toxicology, clinical research, and plant physiology.
2. The branch of pharmacology concerned with the effects of drugs on the nervous system.
3. The branch of pharmacology dealing especially with the action of drugs upon various parts of the nervous system.
2. The study of the effect of drugs and medicines on psychological processes.
An interdisciplinary science related to psychopharmacology (how drugs affect the mind) and fundamental neuroscience. It entails research of mechanisms of neuropathology, pharmacodynamics (drug action), psychiatric illness, and states of consciousness. These studies are instigated at the detailed level involving neurotransmission or neuroreceptor activity, bio-chemical processes, and neural circuitry.